


The Freshman Experience

by EHyde



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Horror, Mind Control, Second Person, not the same you as in "a story about you"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 12:58:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EHyde/pseuds/EHyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's your first year at Night Vale Community College. You've just finished the special orientation program for non-local students, and you're excited to meet your roommate. She's excited to meet you, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Freshman Experience

You’re a new freshman at Night Vale Community College, and you think you’re going to like it here. It wasn’t your first choice, but it wasn’t your safety school either. Now that you think of it, you don’t actually remember applying to NVCC at all, which makes it really convenient that you had to stop here for gas on your way to … wherever it was you were going. Otherwise, no one would have found you to tell you about your full-ride scholarship, and you’d have missed this opportunity completely.

You just finished Orientation Week, which wasn’t held on the main campus, but in an underground complex outside of town. It was a special orientation for non-local students, and it passed by in something of a blur—because of the excitement, you’re sure. You don’t actually remember any details, any specific things you learned, but you feel like you belong here now. And that’s what orientation is for, isn’t it?

Your roommate must be a local, because you haven’t seen her yet. That’s where you’re going now—to your dorm room, where she’ll be waiting. You hope she’s nice—you hope you and she can form a lifelong bond.

You open the door. “Hello?” you say. Then you smile, because she’s here. You introduce yourself, and ask for her name in return.

“You can’t pronounce my name,” she says. “But that’s okay! Yours is great, I’m happy to use yours.”

You nod, and look around the room. It’s small, but you weren’t really expecting more in a college dorm. “There’s only one bed,” you notice.

“That doesn’t matter,” says your roommate. Well, that’s good. You’d hate it if the college made a mistake like that. “I’m so excited to finally meet you,” your roommate says. “They wouldn’t let me attend at all, unless they found a match for me. And you’re a perfect fit.”

You feel flattered, although you can’t imagine what’s so special about yourself. “Really?” you ask. “They don’t have single rooms here?”

“Not for me,” your roommate says, with a laugh. “So. Any thoughts on decoration? I have some sigils I’d like to paint on the walls and I’ll need some of your blood for that, if that’s okay. Also a couple of posters.”

That sounds reasonable to you. You have some posters of your own, rolled up carefully in a tube, but they don’t seem important now. “Whatever you want to do with the room is fine with me,” you say. “I don’t have any strong opinions on the matter.”

“Great!” says your roommate. “We should do that before you go out again.”

You don’t have anything else on your schedule for a few hours, so you agree readily.

“Tell me what brought you to Night Vale,” your roommate says as you stand with blood dripping from your hand, painting careful lines and circles. “I’m curious.”

“Well, a car …” you say, unsure of what she means.

“Really?” she asks. “You just … drove here?”

“I was driving somewhere else,” you explain. “But I came here.”

“Neat!” says your roommate. “I was wondering how they’d bring you here. Night Vale is sort of a gateway for me,” she explains.

“You mean, you’re planning to transfer out?”

“Exactly!” she says. “After a year or two here, I should be ready to move on. I’m thinking Cornell, or Miskatonic.”

“I was accepted to both those schools,” you recall.

“See?” says your roommate. “You’re a perfect fit!”

“You’ve got everything planned out,” you say, feeling a little lost. You don’t have any plans for the future, don’t have any hopes and dreams. You really feel like you should, or that you did once but you can’t remember … no, that’s silly. If you’d had any strong desires, you wouldn’t forget them. “What do you want to do after that?”

“Well, here I’m studying unspeakable geometries and interdimensional physics,” she says. “But what I really want is to be an architect. That’s why I’ll have to transfer. I want humans all around the world to look upon my works and speak my name.”

“I thought your name was unpronounceable,” you say.

“Oh no, I only said that you can’t speak it,” she replies. “That would be bad, if you said it.”

You finish putting up the posters. They show buildings—some ancient, some modern—all around the world, although you don’t actually recognize any of them. Well, you haven’t studied architecture at all, and your roommate is clearly very passionate about it.

“Before we go out to dinner,” your roommate begins, “that sigil there?” She points to one of the designs on the wall. “That’s nice, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you like that as a tattoo?”

 _What a great idea_ , you think. Your roommate knows you so well already! She draws the sign on your arm, just with a sharpie but it sinks into your skin, which is cool. You always wanted a tattoo … wait, did you? Well, you assume you did. Doesn’t everyone?

“Now I want to go to the dining hall to eat food,” says your roommate. “I’ve never done that before.” She must have just moved on campus today. You meet some interesting people at dinner, some potential friends, but you let your roommate do the talking. You’re content to follow her lead.

That night in bed, you dream. You relive your trip to college. You’re headed to Cornell, where you’ll study government and international relations. You’re going to make a difference in the world. You’re with your mom, driving from Virginia to Ithaca, but you’ve ended up in the desert somehow. Your mom jokes that you must have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and you roll your eyes, but you stop at a gas station to ask for directions because both of your phones have gone dead. As soon as you pull over, police cars pull up around you and masked, uniformed men surround your car, and they’re pulling you and your mom out and they’re forcing you into an unmarked black van, but they’re not taking your mom, they’re—then you’re in some sort of laboratory, and you’re strapped down to a table, and you try to scream but your voice doesn’t respond, and someone or something that you can’t see is behind you, pressing something cold against the back of your skull, and—

“Oh  _wow_ , that’s terrible,” says your roommate. “I didn’t know nightmares were like that.”

Still half asleep, you wonder why your roommate is speaking with your voice, and why you can’t see her even though you know she’s  _right there_ , and then you realize that you’ve never seen her. That dream, it—but it’s vague in your mind now, fading away the way that dreams do.

“Don’t worry,” says your roommate. “I won’t let it happen again. I’ll take good care of you.” She gets out of bed and gets dressed, excited for the first day of classes. Her excitement is contagious, and you’ve all but forgotten your nightmare. “So that’s what you look like,” she says as she steps in front of the bathroom mirror to fix her hair.

You look back out at her through the glass, back out at  _yourself_ , and it all comes rushing back. Your dream, that was  _real_ , and your roommate—that _thing_ —is controlling your body, controlling  _you_.  _“You can’t do this!”_  you scream, soundlessly pounding your fists against the inside of the glass, but she can and she will. She frowns at her reflection—at you—but then nods like she’s remembered something and steps away from the mirror.

It’s the first day of classes at Night Vale Community College, and whatever it was that was bothering you seems unimportant now as you follow your roommate out the door and into your new life.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, usually I don't even like reading second person narration, but this story seemed to want it so I gave it a shot. I think it worked out all right.
> 
> Also, since all the cool kids are doing this, I'm fallenwithstyle on tumblr if you want to come hang out!


End file.
